White Revolution was a participant or observer in the following events:

Stormfront logo. [Source: Don Black]According to an article by the Washington Post, owners and operators of racist, white supremacist Web sites such as Stormfront (see March 1995) report a large increase in traffic, apparently sparked by Senator Barack Obama (D-IL)‘s recent naming as the Democratic nominee for president. Billy Roper, a former member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974 and Summer 2005) and now the chief of an Arkansas group called White Revolution, says: “I haven’t seen this much anger in a long, long time. Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president.” Deborah Lauter, the civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), says: “[W]e’re finding an explosion in these kinds of hateful sentiments on the Net, and it’s a growing problem. There are probably thousands of Web sites that do this now. I couldn’t even tell you how many are out there because it’s growing so fast.” The white power organizations acknowledge that they have little chance to derail Obama’s candidacy, so instead some of them say they are using it to energize their membership and reach out for new members. The Post reports, “[t]he groups now portray [Obama’s] candidacy as a vehicle to disenfranchise whites and polarize America.” The groups have helped foster the debunked rumors that Obama is a Muslim, that his books are overtly racist, that his wife Michelle is a radical black activist who hates “whitey,” and other claims. Stormfront’s owner, Don Black, says that since 1995, he has tried to make his site a “central meeting place for the white power movement.” Obama’s nomination is helping him fulfill his vision, he says. Black has 40 moderators running 54 message boards that welcome over 40,000 unique visitors every day. Posters on Stormfront complain that Obama represents the end of “white rule” and the beginning of “multiculturalism.” They fear that he will promote affirmative action, support illegal immigration, and help render whites, who make up two-thirds of the US population, “the new minority.” Black says: “I get nonstop emails and private message from new people who are mad as hell about the possibility of Obama being elected. White people, for a long time, have thought of our government as being for us, and Obama is the best possible evidence that we’ve lost that. This is scaring a lot of people who maybe never considered themselves racists, and it’s bringing them over to our side.” David Duke, Black’s former mentor and a former Ku Klux Klan leader, says his Web site’s traffic has doubled. White supremacist Dan Hill, who runs an extremist group in northern Michigan, says his cohorts are more willing to “take serious action” and plan rallies to protest politicians and immigration; he says he recently drove to an Obama rally and tried to “get a riot started or something.” Roper says White Revolution receives about 10 new applicants each week, more than double the norm. Ron Doggett, who helps Duke run a white power group called EURO in Virginia, says: “Our side does better when the public is being pressured, when gas prices are high, when housing is bad, when a black man might be president. People start looking for solutions and changes, and we offer radical changes to what’s going on.” Duke says: “One person put it this way: Obama for president paves the way for David Duke as president. This is finally going to make whites begin to realize it’s a necessity to stick up for their own heritage, and that’s going to make them turn to people like me. We’re the next logical step.” Doggett worries that an Obama presidential victory may doom the white supremacist movement, saying: “What you try not to think about is that maybe if Obama wins, it will create a very demoralizing effect. Maybe people see him in office, and it’s like: ‘That’s it. It’s just too late. Look at what’s happened now. We’ve endured all these defeats, and we’ve still got a multicultural society.’ And then there’s just no future for our viewpoint.” [Washington Post, 6/22/2008]

Ordering

Time period

Email Updates

Receive weekly email updates summarizing what contributors have added to the History Commons database

Donate

Developing and maintaining this site is very labor intensive. If you find it useful, please give us a hand and donate what you can.Donate Now

Volunteer

If you would like to help us with this effort, please contact us. We need help with programming (Java, JDO, mysql, and xml), design, networking, and publicity. If you want to contribute information to this site, click the register link at the top of the page, and start contributing.Contact Us